An old fee that’s made untold millions for the country’s big cellphone providers may now end up costing them billions, while wireless users everywhere could find a few bucks put back in their pocket.

The Supreme Court of Canada refused Thursday an appeal by Rogers Communications Inc., BCE’s Bell Mobility and Telus Corp. and others, who were asking the top court to throw out a case over controversial “system access fees.”

The decision means a class-action suit originally filed in a Saskatchewan court in 2004 can proceed — with 30,000 people already having joined the case, according to lawyer Tony Merchant

The ultimate goal is, they were overcharging people, charging people wrongly and we want the money back

“The ultimate goal is, they were overcharging people, charging people wrongly and we want the money back,” said Mr. Merchant of Merchant Law Group and a lead lawyer in the action.

Mr. Merchant, whose firm has spearheaded high-profile cases in the past such as the 2008 Maple Leaf Foods class action over a Listeria outbreak, said the motion seeks $18-billion from the national carriers as well as regional providers SaskTel (Saskatchewan), MTS (Manitoba) and Bell Aliant (Eastern Canada) for “unjust enrichment” through the fees.

For years, mobile providers charged subscribers up to $9 a month for “access” to their network. The fees, sometimes labeled as administration costs, were charged on top of monthly usage rates and helped elevate Canadian cellphone bills to the highest per customer in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development by 2009.

The carriers, who have defended the charges as a means to maintain investment in their networks, moved to phase them out as new competitors like Wind Mobile and Mobilicity prepared to enter the market offering flat-rate plans that charged nothing for network access.

Last November, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal struck down a motion from the carriers to have the suit dismissed, supporting in its decision previous rulings that said the “legitimacy” of the fees could be questioned. A three-member panel of justices also said the notion of “unjust enrichment” was strong enough to carry a class-action suit against the companies.

The Supreme Court’s rejection of the carrier’s latest attempt at dismissing the case Thursday clears the way for Merchant to proceed to a trial at the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench.

Merchant’s claim also includes complaints the fees were not adequately disclosed to customers.

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“It’s about this money for consumers but it’s also advertising and communication from businesses that’s fair and done properly. It’s not supposed to misdirect people,” Mr. Merchant said.

The statement of claim lists “All residents of Canada who have purchased wireless services from any of the defendants since April 1, 1987” as being eligible to participate.

Shawn Hall, a spokesperson for Telus said the carrier is “confident the case is without merit and baseless, at least as it relates to Telus.”

“We’re confident this claim is unfounded and now look forward to having our day in court on the merits of this claim,” Leigh-Ann Popek, a spokeswoman for Rogers said.

Bell declined to comment on the suit.

Telus is the third-largest cellphone provider in Canada with 7.36 million customers. Rogers is the largest with 9.3 million followed by Bell Mobility with 7.4 million accounts.

Rogers moved to phase out its systems access fee of $6.95-a-month in September 2009, a move followed on by rival incumbents. Rogers replaced the fee with a “government regulatory recovery fee” of between $2.50 and $3.50 a month.

The company said at the time that the “GRRF” was to show customers what it was paying out to governments for items like spectrum licence fees.

In Merchant’s statement of claim, lawyers said that in 2004 alone incumbent carriers collected $863-million in system access fees, compared with the $126-million Merchant estimated would be paid to governments.